Arnold Rothstein getting some work done in his office on West 57th Street.
Arnold Rothstein
He helped organize
organized crime
Rothstein on his way to a meeting.
Known to his peers as "The Brain," "Mr. Big," "The Fixer," "The Man Uptown" and "The Big Bankroll," Rothstein was a New York gambler who became a kingpin of the Jewish mafia. He is widely reputed to have been behind baseball’s infamous Black Sox Scandal, and his notoriety inspired several fictional characters based on his life, including "Meyer Wolfsheim" in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel "The Great Gatsby," the character who shared his name in the Broadway Musical "Legs Diamond" and "Nathan Detroit" in the Damon Runyon story "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown," which was made into the Tony Award-winning musical "Guys and Dolls." It remains one of the most widely-staged musicals in community theater.
Rothstein is credited with being the Moses of the Jewish gangsters, a rich man’s son who showed the young hoodlums of the Bowery how to have style. Indeed, Charles "Lucky" Luciano would one day say of him: "He taught me how to dress. He introduced me to fine dining and taught me how to talk. He showed me how to act like a gentleman." Rothstein is credited with bringing structure and laying the groundwork to organize organized crime. Before Rothstein, "organized" crime was really just a large number of gangs that spent as much time fighting amongst themselves as they did working their various criminal activities.
Early success
Rothstein was born in New York City Jan. 18, 1882, the son of Abraham Rothstein, an honest and respected businessman. Rothstein’s older brother embraced the family religion and studied to be a rabbi. When Rothstein showed an early skill for mathematics, it was assumed he’d follow his father into business. Rothstein had a different plan.
He took an early interest in illegal activities such as gambling, and by 1910 he had moved to the Tenderloin section of Manhattan and established a successful casino. When Prohibition came along, Rothstein was one of the first to see the potential for huge profits in supplying a thirsty public, and he invested heavily in numerous speakeasies around the city. He also invested in a horse racing track at Havre de Grace, Md., where he protected his investment by fixing many of the races.
Rothstein’s real power, however, was his extensive network of informants, very deep pockets and the willingness to pay top dollar for good information, regardless of the source. His successes made him a millionaire by age 30.
Rothstein is credited with being the Moses of the Jewish gangsters, a rich man’s son who showed the young hoodlums of the Bowery how to have style. Indeed, Charles "Lucky" Luciano would one day say of him: "He taught me how to dress. He introduced me to fine dining and taught me how to talk. He showed me how to act like a gentleman." Rothstein is credited with bringing structure and laying the groundwork to organize organized crime. Before Rothstein, "organized" crime was really just a large number of gangs that spent as much time fighting amongst themselves as they did working their various criminal activities.
Early success
Rothstein was born in New York City Jan. 18, 1882, the son of Abraham Rothstein, an honest and respected businessman. Rothstein’s older brother embraced the family religion and studied to be a rabbi. When Rothstein showed an early skill for mathematics, it was assumed he’d follow his father into business. Rothstein had a different plan.
He took an early interest in illegal activities such as gambling, and by 1910 he had moved to the Tenderloin section of Manhattan and established a successful casino. When Prohibition came along, Rothstein was one of the first to see the potential for huge profits in supplying a thirsty public, and he invested heavily in numerous speakeasies around the city. He also invested in a horse racing track at Havre de Grace, Md., where he protected his investment by fixing many of the races.
Rothstein’s real power, however, was his extensive network of informants, very deep pockets and the willingness to pay top dollar for good information, regardless of the source. His successes made him a millionaire by age 30.
1919 Chicago White Sox team picture.
 Joseph 'Sport' Sullivan  Attell in his fighting days. He fought under the name 'The Little Hebrew' Attell. |
 Abraham Washington 'Abe' Attell  A dapper Attell |
1919 World Series
Rothstein
For all his successes, however, he is most famous for his alledged fixing of the 1919 World Series in which he allegedly paid members of the Chicago White Sox to throw the World Series, enabling him to make a significant amount of money with his bets. It became known as the "Black Sox Scandal." However, there is some question as to whether he actually fixed the series, or learned of the scam via one of his informants and simply placed bets knowing the outcome.
Summoned to Chicago to testify before a grand jury investigation of the incident, Rothstein said he was an innocent businessman intent on clearing his name and his reputation. Prosecutors could find no evidence linking him to the affair and he was never indicted.
During his testimony, Rothstein said: "The whole thing started when (Abe) Attell and some other cheap gamblers decided to frame the series and make a killing. The world knows I was asked in on the deal and my friends know how I turned it down flat. I don’t doubt that Attell used my name to put it over. That’s been done by smarter men than Abe. But I was not in on it, would not have gone into it under any circumstances and did not bet a cent on the series after I found out what was under way."
Athough it will never be fully known who did what, or who knew what when, there are two key versions which most historians agree contains the most realistic sequence of events.
The first version has Rothstein turning down the proposal relayed by Attell. However, this in fact had been the second "fix" he’d refused to bankroll. A gambler named Joseph "Sport" Sullivan had previously approached Rothstein with the same idea. After receiving Attell’s offer, Rothstein reasoned he could now afford to reconsider the initial offer from Sullivan. Rothstein figured that the field was becoming so crowded with would-be fixers that he could risk getting involved and still cover his tracks. As Rothstein explained to Sullivan: "If a girl goes to bed with nine guys, who’s going to believe her when she says the 10th one’s the father?"
Another version of this story has Rothstein working both ends of the fix with Sullivan and Attell.
However, what most likely happened, according to many crime historians, is that Attell fixed the series without Rothstein’s backing, but Rothstein, using inside knowledge, bet on the series and make a killing.
1921 Travers Stakes
Rothstein also owned a racehorse named Sporting Blood. It won the 1921 Travers Stakes, but under suspicious circumstances. Allegedly, Rothstein conspired with a leading trainer, Sam Hildreth, to drive up the odds on Sporting Blood. Hildreth entered an outstanding three-year-old, Grey Lag, on the morning of the race, immediately causing the odds on Sporting Blood, to rise to 3-1. Rothstein then bet $150,000 through various bookmakers, allegedly having been informed that the second favorite, Prudery, was off her feed. Just before post time and without explanation, Hildreth scratched Grey Lag from the starting list. Rothstein collected more than $500,000 in bets, plus the purse. There were many complaints and much accusations and finger pointing, but no charges were filed and a conspiracy was never proven.
Summoned to Chicago to testify before a grand jury investigation of the incident, Rothstein said he was an innocent businessman intent on clearing his name and his reputation. Prosecutors could find no evidence linking him to the affair and he was never indicted.
During his testimony, Rothstein said: "The whole thing started when (Abe) Attell and some other cheap gamblers decided to frame the series and make a killing. The world knows I was asked in on the deal and my friends know how I turned it down flat. I don’t doubt that Attell used my name to put it over. That’s been done by smarter men than Abe. But I was not in on it, would not have gone into it under any circumstances and did not bet a cent on the series after I found out what was under way."
Athough it will never be fully known who did what, or who knew what when, there are two key versions which most historians agree contains the most realistic sequence of events.
The first version has Rothstein turning down the proposal relayed by Attell. However, this in fact had been the second "fix" he’d refused to bankroll. A gambler named Joseph "Sport" Sullivan had previously approached Rothstein with the same idea. After receiving Attell’s offer, Rothstein reasoned he could now afford to reconsider the initial offer from Sullivan. Rothstein figured that the field was becoming so crowded with would-be fixers that he could risk getting involved and still cover his tracks. As Rothstein explained to Sullivan: "If a girl goes to bed with nine guys, who’s going to believe her when she says the 10th one’s the father?"
Another version of this story has Rothstein working both ends of the fix with Sullivan and Attell.
However, what most likely happened, according to many crime historians, is that Attell fixed the series without Rothstein’s backing, but Rothstein, using inside knowledge, bet on the series and make a killing.
1921 Travers Stakes
Rothstein also owned a racehorse named Sporting Blood. It won the 1921 Travers Stakes, but under suspicious circumstances. Allegedly, Rothstein conspired with a leading trainer, Sam Hildreth, to drive up the odds on Sporting Blood. Hildreth entered an outstanding three-year-old, Grey Lag, on the morning of the race, immediately causing the odds on Sporting Blood, to rise to 3-1. Rothstein then bet $150,000 through various bookmakers, allegedly having been informed that the second favorite, Prudery, was off her feed. Just before post time and without explanation, Hildreth scratched Grey Lag from the starting list. Rothstein collected more than $500,000 in bets, plus the purse. There were many complaints and much accusations and finger pointing, but no charges were filed and a conspiracy was never proven.
Lindy's restaurant, at 49th and Broadway in Mahnattan.
Prohibition and organized crime
A stroll in Central Park.
With the advent of Prohibition, Rothstein diversified into bootlegging and narcotics. His criminal organization included such underworld luminaries as Meyer Lansky, Jack "Legs" Diamond, Charles "Lucky" Luciano and Dutch Schultz. Because of his organizational skills, he was frequently called upon to mediate differences between New York gangs, reportedly charging a hefty fee for his services. His favorite "office" was Lindy’s Restaurant, at Broadway and 49th Street in Manhattan, where he would stand on the corner surrounded by his bodyguards and do business on the street. Rothstein made bets and collected debts from those who had lost the previous day.
Death on a cold November night
The Park Central Hotel.
On Sunday, Nov. 4, 1928, Rothstein was shot and mortally wounded after being called to Manhattan’s Park Central Hotel shortly after 10 p.m. on a business matter. He died the next day at the Stuyvesant Polyclinic Hospital in Manhattan. He was 46.
Rothstein had spent the day conducting routine business at various sites around town, including placing more bets on Herbert Hoover for president and Franklin Roosevelt for governor of New York. (The elections were two days away.) He also protected his bets by placing several others on various combinations of outcomes. If all his bets came in (they did) he stood to win $570,000.
It had rained all day, and now, as night fell, so did the sleet and the wind picked up. At about 9 p.m. Rothstein arrived at Lindy's. He spoke with several people around the room, until 10:12 p.m. when he received a call from the Park Central Hotel, about six blocks away. The call had been placed by the hotel's swirchboard operator, Bernice Jackson, on behalf of a guest in Room 349, registered as "George A. Richards of Newwark, N.J."
Rothstein took the call, listened for a minute, and then put on his hat and coat. "I'm going over to see McManus. I'll be back in a half-hour," he told an associate. McManus was George "Hump" McManus, a gambler to whom Rothstein alledgedly owed a large sum of money from a gambling event the pair and others had participated in back in early September.
According to underworld folklore, it was a spectacular three-day, high-stakes poker game in Apartment 32 of the Congress Apartments at 54th Street and Seventh Avenue. Besides Rothstein, there was Jimmy Meehan, who lived at the apartment, and several professional gamblers, including Alvin C. "Titanic" Thompson, brothers Meyer and Sam Boston, "Red" Martin Bowe and Nathan "Nigger Nate" Raymond. Allegedly, Rothstein lost $322,000 that weekend, or roughly $10,000 per hour.
When the game broke up, however, Rothstein refused to honor his markers, claiming the game was fixed. The hit was arranged to punish Rothstein for reneging on this debt. McManus was arrested for the murder, but later acquitted for lack of evidence.
On Nov. 4, as Rothstein was leaving to meet McManus, he handed his pearl-handled revolver to a bodyguard and told him to hold it for him. (In the underworld, taking a gun to a meeting in which your safety is assured is considered a serious breach of etiquette.) He then began walking to the Park Central, a few blocks away.
At 10:47 p.m. Park Central service elevator operator Vince Kelly saw a man "walking down slow" along the service hallway. He was holding his side. "Are you sick?" asked Kelly. "Get me a taxi," the man said. "I've been shot." Several hotel employees quickly gathered around to help the wounded man and, as the taxi arrived, so did Patrolman William M. Davis.
Davis asked Rothstein who shot him, but he only responsed, "Get me home. I live at 912 Fifth Avenue." Davis asked again, but again Rothstein responsed "Don't ask questions. Get me a cab."
As Rothstein was rushed to a hospital, word spread quickly around town. In less than 90 minutes, at Joe Pani's fashionable nightclub in surburban Westchester County, where millionaires, Hollywood stars, politicans and gangsters rubbed elbows, New York Mayor James "Gentleman Jimmy" Walker and his showgirl girlfriend, Betty "Monk" Compton, were having dinner, when a gangster whispered the news in Walker's ear.
Walker immedately paid his check and started to leave. As he passed bandleader Vincent Lopez, a friend, Lopez asked if everything was all right. "Not exactly," was Walker's response. Lopez followed him out and Walker said, "Rothstein has just been shot, Vince. And that means trouble and plenty of it for here on in for all of us." And so it did.
Rothstein, on his deathbed, refused to identify his killer, answering police inquiries with "You stick to your trade. I’ll stick to mine" and "Me mudder did it." Rothstein was buried at Ridgewood’s Union Field Cemetery in a Jewish Orthodox ceremony.
Another theory about Rothstein’s death is offered in the book "Kill the Dutchman," where it’s alleged Dutch Schultz murdered Rothstein in retaliation for the murder of his friend and associate, Joey Noe, by Rothstein’s protege, Jack "Legs" Diamond.
Frank Erickson, Meyer Lansky, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, and other former associates inherited Rothstein’s various "enterprises" after his death. Politically, Rothstein’s death contributed to the rapid fall of New York's corrupt Tammany Hall and the rise of honest Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, who went a long way in cleaning up the city.
Ten years after his death, Rothstein’s only surviving brother declared Rothstein’s estate bankrupt.
Rothstein had spent the day conducting routine business at various sites around town, including placing more bets on Herbert Hoover for president and Franklin Roosevelt for governor of New York. (The elections were two days away.) He also protected his bets by placing several others on various combinations of outcomes. If all his bets came in (they did) he stood to win $570,000.
It had rained all day, and now, as night fell, so did the sleet and the wind picked up. At about 9 p.m. Rothstein arrived at Lindy's. He spoke with several people around the room, until 10:12 p.m. when he received a call from the Park Central Hotel, about six blocks away. The call had been placed by the hotel's swirchboard operator, Bernice Jackson, on behalf of a guest in Room 349, registered as "George A. Richards of Newwark, N.J."
Rothstein took the call, listened for a minute, and then put on his hat and coat. "I'm going over to see McManus. I'll be back in a half-hour," he told an associate. McManus was George "Hump" McManus, a gambler to whom Rothstein alledgedly owed a large sum of money from a gambling event the pair and others had participated in back in early September.
According to underworld folklore, it was a spectacular three-day, high-stakes poker game in Apartment 32 of the Congress Apartments at 54th Street and Seventh Avenue. Besides Rothstein, there was Jimmy Meehan, who lived at the apartment, and several professional gamblers, including Alvin C. "Titanic" Thompson, brothers Meyer and Sam Boston, "Red" Martin Bowe and Nathan "Nigger Nate" Raymond. Allegedly, Rothstein lost $322,000 that weekend, or roughly $10,000 per hour.
When the game broke up, however, Rothstein refused to honor his markers, claiming the game was fixed. The hit was arranged to punish Rothstein for reneging on this debt. McManus was arrested for the murder, but later acquitted for lack of evidence.
On Nov. 4, as Rothstein was leaving to meet McManus, he handed his pearl-handled revolver to a bodyguard and told him to hold it for him. (In the underworld, taking a gun to a meeting in which your safety is assured is considered a serious breach of etiquette.) He then began walking to the Park Central, a few blocks away.
At 10:47 p.m. Park Central service elevator operator Vince Kelly saw a man "walking down slow" along the service hallway. He was holding his side. "Are you sick?" asked Kelly. "Get me a taxi," the man said. "I've been shot." Several hotel employees quickly gathered around to help the wounded man and, as the taxi arrived, so did Patrolman William M. Davis.
Davis asked Rothstein who shot him, but he only responsed, "Get me home. I live at 912 Fifth Avenue." Davis asked again, but again Rothstein responsed "Don't ask questions. Get me a cab."
As Rothstein was rushed to a hospital, word spread quickly around town. In less than 90 minutes, at Joe Pani's fashionable nightclub in surburban Westchester County, where millionaires, Hollywood stars, politicans and gangsters rubbed elbows, New York Mayor James "Gentleman Jimmy" Walker and his showgirl girlfriend, Betty "Monk" Compton, were having dinner, when a gangster whispered the news in Walker's ear.
Walker immedately paid his check and started to leave. As he passed bandleader Vincent Lopez, a friend, Lopez asked if everything was all right. "Not exactly," was Walker's response. Lopez followed him out and Walker said, "Rothstein has just been shot, Vince. And that means trouble and plenty of it for here on in for all of us." And so it did.
Rothstein, on his deathbed, refused to identify his killer, answering police inquiries with "You stick to your trade. I’ll stick to mine" and "Me mudder did it." Rothstein was buried at Ridgewood’s Union Field Cemetery in a Jewish Orthodox ceremony.
Another theory about Rothstein’s death is offered in the book "Kill the Dutchman," where it’s alleged Dutch Schultz murdered Rothstein in retaliation for the murder of his friend and associate, Joey Noe, by Rothstein’s protege, Jack "Legs" Diamond.
Frank Erickson, Meyer Lansky, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, and other former associates inherited Rothstein’s various "enterprises" after his death. Politically, Rothstein’s death contributed to the rapid fall of New York's corrupt Tammany Hall and the rise of honest Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, who went a long way in cleaning up the city.
Ten years after his death, Rothstein’s only surviving brother declared Rothstein’s estate bankrupt.
 Rothstein's body is removed from the hospital after his death.   |
 An employee stands at the spot where Rothstein fell in the hotel.  George 'Hump' McManus under arrest. He was later acquitted for lack of evidence. Above left is Rothstein's burial stone. Bernice Jackson, the telephone operator, is pictured at left. |
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 Betty 'Monk' Compton, Mayor Jimmy Walker's showgirl girlfriend, is pictured above. At left is Walker. |
George McManus rejoices while leaving the Criminal Courts building in New York in 1929. He had just been acquitted of Rothstein's murder.
